


Malicious

by NancyBrown



Category: Wreck-It Ralph (2012)
Genre: Extra Treat, Gen, Horror, Trick or Treat 2015
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-24
Updated: 2015-10-24
Packaged: 2018-04-27 23:25:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 543
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5068906
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NancyBrown/pseuds/NancyBrown
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There's a virus loose at Litwik's Arcade.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Malicious

**Author's Note:**

  * For [we-protect-each-other (failsafe)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/failsafe/gifts).



Vanellope doesn't breathe for real but if she did, she'd be breathing heavily. Farthead is with her, strong as ever. He carried her out of the Fix-It Felix game where they'd all hidden, hoping the eight-bit code was old enough to protect them. She'd run beside him for the last unknowable time, glitching her way through game after game, always coming up against compromised code. They've paused inside a back piece of the old Pac-Man code, sinking down to rest for a moment. They won't have long.

"You think we lost it?" Ralph asks her. He's trying for cheerful, a stupid smile over his face. She loves the big lug for that, even if he is a hot mess.

"Yeah," she says, putting on her own false grin. "You take a breather, buddy. I'll keep my eyes peeled."

His face drops. He doesn't believe the gumdrops they're feeding each other.

The virus hit Litwik's arcade late last week. Someone brought in a USB stick and carelessly jacked it into an open slot on that new Jurassic Whatever game. It swallowed the dinosaurs whole, then hopped aboard the code the survivors of that disaster like an invisible bomb. Every character it attacked became part of its own design, lurching towards the rest and armed with everything they already knew.

The last Vanellope had seen Sgt. Calhoun, she'd been blasting away at the thing, shouting in fury. Now Calhoun was part of the hissing, popping, buzzing creature stalking them through the ruins of the arcade.

She hears the noise. Her head shoots up just as Ralph's does.

"Scram, kid," he says, pushing her off as he gets to his feet.

She grabs his meaty hand. "Where to?"

"Anywhere. Don't tell me where, just go. I'll try to fight it off as long as I can to give you time."

"No way." Ralph's her last and best friend. The rest are dead. "It'll eat you!"

He tugs away from her, and smacks his fist into his other hand. "Maybe. Or maybe I could use a snack myself. Go on."

The noise is louder, coming from everywhere. Vanellope feels hot tears as she flings her arms around his neck. "You follow me, okay?"

"Okay," he lies. She runs. As soon as she's out of sight, she hears Ralph bellow a challenge at the virus, and then she hears him scream.

Glitching faster and faster, she speeds through line after line, desperate for escape. Litwik, in his own attempt to stop the spread of the contagion, has been shutting down every infected machine. She's running into walls, dead boxes where her friends used to live and fight and race. On one last chance, she leaps into the Galaga box. The demo ships shoot ever-falling enemies from the sky, oblivious to the danger on the ground.

"Hey kid," Vanellope hears, but it's wrong. It's so wrong, the timbre of his voice. She doesn't want to see.

She turns around. The virus is huge against the backdrop of the space screen, sizzling with street fighters and T-rexes and Cy-bugs. It's wearing Ralph's face.

"Don't fight us," says the virus, and there's no place left to run as it reaches for her, touches her code, and burns and burns and burns.


End file.
